She was looking at me so frankly that I was sure she was wholly ignorant of evil.
"My father is too ill to play himself," she explained, "so I must find a hotel near Mr. Daly's house, and then I shall play every night until our fortune is made. Tonight I lost nearly two thousand dollars. But I was nervous in that strange place. And the system expressly says that one may lose at first. To-morrow I raise the stakes and we shall begin to win. See?"
She pulled a little pad from her bag covered with a maze of figuring.
"But where do you come from?" I asked. "Where is your father?"
Again I saw that look of terror come into her eyes. She glanced quickly about her, and I was sure she was thinking of escaping from me.
I hastened to reassure her.
"Forgive me," I said. "It is no business of mine. And now, if you will trust me a little further I will try to find a hotel for you."
It would have disarmed the worst man to feel her little hand slipped into his arm in that docile manner of hers. I took her to the Seward, the Grand, the Cornhil, and the Merrimac—each in turn.
Vain hope! You know what the New York hotels are. When I asked for a room for her the clerk would eye her furs dubiously, look over his book in pretense, and then inform me that the hotel was full.
At the Merrimac I sat down in the lobby and sent her to the clerk's desk alone, but that was equally useless. I realized pretty soon that no reputable hotel in New York City would accommodate her at that hour.